435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
The Disconnect Between Interest Rates & Housing Prices Is Breaking Traditional Market Patterns
Washington County's real estate market has shifted to a more balanced position with 4.82 months of inventory, representing a 22% increase from last year, though slight downward pressure on pricing has resulted in only a 2% decrease in average sold prices.
• Median sold price of $520,000 shows minimal change from last year at just 1.7% higher
• Current 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.75%, down from 7.26% in January
• Original list price to sold price ratio is 95.9%, indicating sellers are typically getting slightly less than asking
• Days on market varies significantly by price point - homes between $400,000-$500,000 sell fastest at 51 days
• Migration data shows buyers from areas with higher home values (California, Colorado) find Washington County prices reasonable
• Housing market correlation with interest rates appears broken since 2022
• Local economy shows greater diversity than pre-2008 recession when construction was 30% of economy
• Current unemployment rate remains stable at around 3%
Guest Branden DuCharme, CMT,
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[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:00:48] Washington County Real Estate Overview.
[00:08:33] Market Statistics and Current Trends.
[00:18:32] Breaking Down Price Points and Days on Market.
[00:27:46] The Conflict of Interest in Real Estate.
[00:38:35] Home Value Comparisons Across States.
[00:47:33] Employment Data and Economic Diversity.
[00:57:46] Final Thoughts and Episode Wrap-Up.
Okay, people have values of homes outside of our area that are so significantly high and have so much equity in it, to where, when they come here, they're like, oh, 800 grand for that Sweet, I'll pick it up, I'm gonna pay cash for it and have 500 grand left over from the sale of my house. From the Blue Form Media Studios. This is the 435.
Speaker 3:Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for a nice cup of coffee and you're in downtown St George, fs Coffee Co, that's where you're going to want to stop. It's right there on the corner of Tabernacle and Main Street in downtown St George. So if you've got a bicycle, ride it on down there and grab a drip of coffee and tell them the 435 guys sent you on down there. And grab a drip coffee and tell them the 435 guys sent you. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. Today we are going over real estate statistics, over quarter one for Washington County. We're going to hit you. Before I let Brandon and Jeff jump in and comment on it, I'm going to give you a really brief outline of just how we fared, where we're doing, a brief description of how we're doing in the market right now. We're going to update these guys they already know, but to update you and then we're going to dive deeper into it. So for the first 10 minutes we're going to give you just the fast facts, the details of real estate marketing. If you want to hear more, we're going to keep into the conversation. We're going to talk about migration data. We're going to talk about labor data. We're going to talk a little bit about markets. Today is Wednesday, april 3rd. Liberation Day was yesterday. We got a grief about our tariff conversation last time just three months ago, three short months ago. But everybody's getting educated on tariffs. But so to to rattle it off quickly. Hopefully you guys can see my screen, malik, they can see my screen right. All right, absorption rate for the month of March was five months of inventory. We continue to climb in inventory, but year to date we're at 4.82 months so of inventory. So that's saying if no homes hit the market, it would take roughly 4.82 months to sell out everything that's on the market. That's a pretty close to a balanced market, still slightly seller's market depending on the price point, but overall we're in a balanced market. That's a 22% change from year to date, just a year ago, where our absorption rate was just under four months of inventory Average list price, something we're going to dive in a little bit deeper. Year to date. I'm going to stick with year to date. We're going to go over the last three months, but $829,000 was the average list where the average sold was $634,000. So year over year, from last year 2024 to 2025, we had a 2% change downward, downward pressure on pricing because of the increased inventory. We're at $634,000 as the average sold price.
Speaker 1:People are trying to sell for way more than what the market's really willing to bear. A more accurate number I like to see the median sold. So this is the middle number. What's the middle house out of everybody who's buying a house? What's that middle number out of total sales? 520,000, which is basically no change, just about 1.7% higher than last year, about a $10,000 more. You're going to pay 10 grand more for a house on the sticker price today than you did last year.
Speaker 1:At the same time, average days on market we dropped one day from a year ago, so 78 days on market. In March we had 76 days on market, which is a 10% change from March of 24. But if you look at in the rolling 12 months and I'm going to break down days on market per price point, which will kind of be an interesting number to see, but we're seeing a steady climb If you look at 12 months rolling in, the average days on market, it's just taking longer for people to make a decision. Median days on market it's just taking longer for people to make a decision. Median days on market is 46 days, a little bit bigger, a little bit longer than the 44 days back in 2024.
Speaker 1:30-year fixed mortgage rate today, which it changes on a day-to-day basis and a week-to-week basis, a month-to-month basis, and this is an aggregate. Several different surveys. This is Mortgage News Daily Index. It's Freddie Mac Mortgage Bankers Association FHAFA monthly survey. This is an index of all of those 6.75% in January of 2025. So just three months ago we were at 7.26. So we're about a half point difference in change from January to today. So if you're a buyer, you're going to get a better rate today than you did at the beginning of the year. With more inventory, lower rate. It's a great time to buy, depending on your situation. 78 days on the market I said 76. Oh yeah, 78 days a year to date. Balance market I covered that. Um, what sellers want versus what they get the original list price to the sold price, so that the the sticker price that they put on the market for the very first day of the sale, they're getting 95.9% of that asking price overall.
Speaker 2:Overall. So not breaking this down for a price point. Just not price Like overall Overall, so not breaking that down per price point, just Not yet.
Speaker 1:This is just overall and this is a three-month average. So I took the last three months of what that original list price ratio was 95%.
Speaker 2:So or in other words, if you list a house for 500 grand, you can reasonably expect an offer of 485 or to sell it for 485.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess it just depends. What I'm saying is if you list a house for 500 grand but it's not worth 500 grand, you're not going to get that price and you're going to sit on the market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly what's the value of a house is what a buyer's willing to pay and a seller's willing to sell it for right. Sellers are asking more for their house and buyers are staying pretty steadfast and saying we're not going to buy that house, we're going to let it sit on the market. And as inventory climbs and days on market climb, they get less interested in paying the sticker price. I said $485.
Speaker 2:I meant $475. What my math? Yeah, 5%. Math is hard.
Speaker 1:Math's hard. I like to look at this data. This is entertainment purposes, because I get this question all of the time. Well, I was looking on Zillow and the average price per square foot for this type of home is this dollar. Well, a single level price per square foot this is just of the last 90 days was $299 a square foot, which is actually a lot bigger than it was just three months ago. The two-story price per square foot is $261. So there's a big difference.
Speaker 1:I eliminate basements. We don't have a ton of basements. Walkout property, walkout basement properties or daylight basements is what some people call them. I leave that data out because there's not a ton of those, but that big. There's a big jump in what the appraised value is between a single level living space and a two story. This has to do with our demographic of who buys homes here. Yeah, uh, but there's big jump. So really, when you're looking at price per square foot, you got to make sure you're looking at homes that are similar to yours. You can't just say, well, my neighbor down the street sold for 320 a square foot, but you got a two-story with a two-car garage. It's not gonna there's.
Speaker 2:It's in no way comparable there's also a lot of look at that, a lot of appendages that go into price, that don't reflect on price per square foot. Right, exactly, you know, view like a view, a great view, yeah, that's not gonna.
Speaker 1:And then it's also that's subjective too, right? Somebody's view of a golf course is different from mountains, different from a valley, all those things. So, uh, that's the quick and dirty of it. What are your thoughts? What are your immediate thoughts on, on where we're at with the market?
Speaker 2:I mean it. A lot of what you hear in in the news doesn't necessarily reflect on what's actually happening or what's happened in the last few months. Or, like you know, you always hear like what, uh, maybe not anything specific in the news, but, just like you know, you always hear Like what? Maybe not anything specific in the news, but, just like you know, mainstream media seems to be pretty negative about the economy. You know, or someone you know. I was just talking with my neighbor and it was like he was like well, you know, the economy is not doing well and I'm like you know it's a bit of a generalization, you know.
Speaker 3:What's interesting is the economy has been doing really quite well, right, right. But people's expectation of it not going well in the future translates to it's not going well in the present. It's an interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 2:So I guess my point is people are still buying and selling homes and we haven't seen any sort of a quote-unquote crash. People are still buying and selling homes and it's unaffordable for a lot of people, but there's also a lot of people out there with a lot of money or a lot of equity that are moving here.
Speaker 1:What do you think, Brandon? Just when you heard those stats, anything jump out to you.
Speaker 3:I think, like the price per square foot seems a little bit rich. But I think the biggest thing to consider is like, yeah, the real estate statistics. It's so hard to run like a quantitative analysis on this because those intangibles and every property is different, right, and every market's different and, in particular, like you know, washington county is a decent sized county but it's not. We don't have, you know, 10 000 transactions going through the system every single month.
Speaker 1:They have like this like yeah, year to date in the last 90 days we've only had 900 homes. So yeah, so like so, going, in the last 90 days we've only had 900 homes.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so going off, yeah, last 90 days. There's just, and then that's across a whole spectrum of single family. There is walkout basements, there are two story properties, there are properties that are on bigger lots and smaller lots and attached townhomes and, uh, or attached townhomes and huge parade of homes, type homes. Right, there's a, it's not 900. You know super similar properties, right, yeah. And so trying to run the quant analysis is tough. We do it because if we try to, we try to learn from it, from it and try to put some context to it. The price per square foot seems a little bit rich. Right, there's 299. Right, 299 for single family, single, single level, single, yeah context.
Speaker 2:To it the price per square foot seems a little bit rich. Right, there's two 99, right.
Speaker 1:Two 99 for single family, single single level single level yeah.
Speaker 3:But you know, like, how fat are the tails, right? So is there something that we could scrub out of that as an outlier? And it changes the numbers. My guess is probably, um, and so is the price per square foot really that rich? Or if you get something at 260 a square foot, are you getting a screaming deal? I don't, I don't know. I think you know it's. It's a what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 3:Real estate's an inefficient enough market, right, I mean, and that's what makes real estate the investment opportunity is really appealing and attractive in real estate. A lot of times it's because the inefficiency and trying to take advantage of those inefficiencies, but the data is not perfect. So it comes back to like who are the people that are buying and selling right now that I've kind of seen it's the people that need a home, right, it's the people that had a home somewhere else. They need a new home, they moved here for whatever reason. It's not the like, you know, yeah, we just think we would like to upgrade and have the, you know, newer home with bigger house, the pool, right, Like doing the upgrade thing.
Speaker 3:I think it's the people that just like, yeah, I'm ready to you know what, we are ready, willing, financially stable, feel good, that to buy our first home or, you know, or move into the area where selling a home somewhere else, we want to just buy another home and kind of stay in the real estate market that way and own what we live in and it's and it's more of those transactions. But that leads to a lower transaction count. That then leads to the data being a little like less predictable. Yeah, In the, in the metrics.
Speaker 1:It goes, it goes into, like the individual you talk about, the the economy isn't doing well, well, it's. What is the personal economy of the person that's buying a house in Southern Utah? Right, and so? And something we're going to talk a lot about a little bit later on is migration. What are the values of homes from the areas where people are moving here from? Because if you're a local, you know you get myopic and saying I can't believe home values are $200, $299 a square foot, and we were just talking to a guy. He was $1,300 a square foot in Orange County. Right, it's just. That's such a huge otherworldly perspective is that we tend to not remember that, okay, people have values of homes outside of our area that are so significantly high and have so much equity in it to where, when they come here, they're like, oh, 800 grand for that, sweet, I'll pick it up, I'm going to pay cash for it and have 500 grand left over from the sale of my house.
Speaker 3:But you know what happens is those markets don't. They don't digress back the same way, like the convexity is different, like Orange County is never going back to $300 a square foot. Impossible it is, it is just not. If that happens, pandemonium, chaos, utter catastrophe. Right, I mean the economic driver of that is going to be. So, like man, none of it probably matters. Yeah, you know what I mean. It's like at that point it's kind of like you get lost in the weeds.
Speaker 1:But let me finish my point, though, here with that individual economy. So something that I thought was really interesting is that interest rates are 25.25%, so 20 basis points lower. I put 0.25%, which isn't correct, but it's 0.25%, meaning it was 707 in 2024. At the same time, april of 2024, it was 707. Today it's 6.75. Time, april of 2024, it was 707. Today it's 6.75. So you have a lower interest rate. Yet last year we were selling homes for more. So interest rates have come down. Inventories slightly gone up, just slightly, not a ton Inventories slightly gone up, but prices have come down. So it's interesting to see that the individual economies were getting lower prices of the homes over just this last first quarter than we did in first quarter last year with lower interest rates. Yeah, which is telling me, you know, there's something going on. We're frozen in this weird way because we go up in price and then we come down in price.
Speaker 3:And then we go up in price and come down in price. Since 2022, the bond market has been telling us since 2022 that the correlations between equity prices and interest rates is broken. It's not the same analysis as it was in the past, the last sense of GFC, which is interest rates down, home prices up. Home prices go up, they go up. And if interest rates come down, they go up even faster and harder.
Speaker 2:But that's not necessarily true anymore. It's not necessarily true anymore.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily true anymore, and I have people call me crazy.
Speaker 2:You're going to have a lot of lenders in your, in your uh.
Speaker 3:in the comments I they already all hate me, so, uh, not all of them but, a lot of lenders don't love what I have to say, um, but I like it's. It's true though and you're saying it exactly right Like, hey, uh, interest rates have come down a little bit, and everyone said prices would go up and there'd be a bidding war, but, but the prices have mildly receded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the interest rates right so talk, so, like in a real world scenario. If you were a buyer last april, april 3rd of 2024, and you're like well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait until next year, are you in a better spot today than you were in april 2024?
Speaker 3:as far as, like, I think you're in a better situation if nothing else has changed in your life, right, if you haven't lost your job or something like that, yeah, you're. You're probably in a better spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it, you have more houses to choose from and you're gonna you're gonna pay a little bit less, which tends to be the opposite of what, like most lenders and real estate agents tell people.
Speaker 2:I know Right, so that's not necessarily my main point.
Speaker 1:Their whole focus is I want to market, to get people to reach out to me. It's like fire them up, fire up the demand or fire up a seller to make them want to get off the fence Right, and I think it's inappropriate, truthfully, of the person benefiting from them getting off the fence. I'm not quite sure if there's a moral line here that it's touchy to draw on, but it's sales. So, at the end of the day, you're not going to ever stop it right. So that's why and this is why I think the Realtors Hate Me. Instagram page it's a function where he doesn't he's missing the fact. Instagram page it's it's a function where he doesn't he's missing the fact is that if you go to this like low value, um real estate agent and you know, give, give this perception of, of optionality to a seller or a buyer and you, you go to this fully automated real estate agent uh, you know, model it's it's going to go to where?
Speaker 1:What's the incentive? The incentive is to do more transaction for that business to exist. They have to do more transactions for them to make enough money, which means they're going to give less honest opinion and and building trust with that clientele and push for the sale because the incentive is only they have to sell more properties for that business to continue to keep going. Where a real estate agent? Right, we could go sell 100 homes in a year, right, but the incentive for us to sell 100 homes means less quality service to our clients, less repeat referral clients, working with people that know, like and trust us. You know, I would rather do significantly less sales, continue my lifestyle the way that it is and make sure that I'm building trust with my clientele and agents that are just trying to sell more and more and more homes, which is the culture of real estate agents. They just want to get people off the fence so they can sell more real estate, and that, to me, is just which is ironic on that.
Speaker 2:Realtors Hate Me. Instagram dude. I think he posted what his real name is. Is that he was lying about it the whole time?
Speaker 1:I don't know if he said he was lying about it, but it definitely feels like he was just making that whole thing up the whole time for sure feels like it. For sure feels like it. Anyway, we won't talk more about that guy. So I thought, um, that was interesting. Inventories at a two-year high um back to 2022, uh, two-year high of inventory, I thought that was interesting where that supply is still up and then the original sales to list ratio being 95%, I thought that was really interesting too, digging out, go ahead.
Speaker 3:If I can. Just I want to interject just something really quick. If there is people that are thinking about buying, though, like here's the here's the struggle that people buy. When we talk about like are you in a better spot this year than you were last April, right, is it's easy to say I'm going to wait till next April, like I'm going to wait a year and see where things are at, because you know, I think this is going to go down or whatever, right, I think rates are coming down. I think prices are going to come down. I'm not going to buy right now. It's going down. I'm going to wait another year and and and what you end up doing is like you can end up missing the opportunity altogether, right?
Speaker 3:So if you've made that call and you're like I'm going to wait, really take it serious and say, hey, okay, let's take a serious look at my. Do I need a home? Is it really time to buy? Is it going to add stability to my family? Is it going to add those values? And you know, be be careful continuing to try to time it. If your end goal is to own a home the next decade or two in Southern Utah, right, like you have that stability to do that. Be cautious on trying to do that. I think you're better off looking for saying, okay, the market is generally giving me what I was looking for. Now I'm going to at least tighten it up, be really serious about like let me find that great deal that's in this market too. Let's look for the right thing still, but be high intent that if we find that, we're going to go ahead and if I would happen.
Speaker 1:I think you're right onto something. Is that like, if the market's going down, I keep holding out to see if I can time the market right? There's, there's plenty of investment. You know gurus out there that are legitimate, right, tony Robbins being one of the best ones out there to say you cannot time the market, you can't time the bottom right and real estate is not a short term investment strategy. It's not. It's uh, if, if I'm honest, it's cheaper to rent a house right now in Southern Utah than it is to buy a house period right.
Speaker 2:Yes, for the most part, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if your function is, oh, I'm thinking about buying a house and living here for two years and then maybe moving out or moving up or something and doing something different in two years, I think that might be a mistake.
Speaker 1:I think you're making a decision on too short term of a basis where, back in 2019, right, as prices were running up, I think a lot of people were like you got to get in because it's going to be a while before it comes back down. And if you bought in 19, you're still sitting in a good equity position. But if you waited till 21, you're probably going to get the same exact price for your house today as you did in 21. And oh, my gosh man, I was thinking about all these houses that they were listed at, basically the price that they're listed at today. Right, some of them are negative equity. It's because of all those multiple offers, like, we got in such a fever of paying over. Asking is so many homes bid over what market value was and now today, three years later, four years later, that market value is less than what you bought it for right.
Speaker 1:Your interest rate might be low your interest rate might be lower, but the sticker price on the house and so if you made that decision in the short term and you weren't thinking long term I'm going to live in this house for a long period of time it could have been a bad decision. So I think it's a beware situation for investors, speculators In Southern Utah specifically. I think it's a beware situation because we're locked and frozen and anybody who tells you they think it's going up or going down over the next 12 to 18 months, they have no idea what they're talking about. They don't know. It's a five-year run. I think a minimum five-year run is what you have to be thinking about when you're buying a house, especially right now.
Speaker 1:Um, demand is down four percent, so less homes four percent less homes have sold so far this year, 2025 than they did in 24 it's. It equates about 40 homes. So it's not huge um, but supply is up 19 right? So if we're thinking basic economics, supply and demand if I'm going to forecast something out, there's going to be continued downward pressure on pricing. Is it significant? No, because we've seen already, it's only a 2% drop year over year.
Speaker 2:Well, and if what Brandon just said has any semblance of accuracy supply is up, demand is down, but prices are staying pretty stable.
Speaker 1:I mean it would kind of.
Speaker 2:But prices are staying pretty stable. I mean it would kind of make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Exactly. You can see here on the screen, al, if you want just to see those price trends. This is average sold sale, median sold sale over the last since 2020. So this is you know, right at COVID, all the way up till today, you can see a big spike and then we basically flatlined, really since 23,. We flatlined and we haven't seen a ton of movement in the median sale price over time. And, for all intents and purposes, I don't think we're going to get unlocked out of this anytime soon, mainly because it's an affordability issue, mainly because it's an affordability issue. Another price trend this is actually the active average list price. So, compared to what sold, the average sold list price is.
Speaker 1:I'll show the guys as I knock over stuff. Sorry, fs Coffee, I'll show the guys this Look at the 2020 numbers or 2022. Look at the active average list price and how fast it came down. So the sellers typically shift, falling off a cliff. It falls off a cliff, the sellers kind of shift when the market is shifting, but we've basically hovered around that 95% to 96% price ratio since 2022 over the last three years, which is kind of interesting. So it's not too much different than what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1:But this is the advice to the sellers. Advice to the sellers is if you need price A, that's one thing, list a house, see if you can get that. But if you go to a real estate agent and you look at the data and you do a proper comparable market analysis and say, yeah, but my house has new garage flooring, right, or I painted the shed, that's probably not going to get you any more value otherwise based off the comparable data. And so we still have to price our house competitively in the market, right. Every market is within it's a six month window, right.
Speaker 1:If it takes 70 days to sell, you got basically 90 days to really test out the market and find out what's going on in that market. If you price it too high, you're going to just sit on the market and you're going to inevitably get less because buyers know they're motivated there's some kind of motivation to sell. So make sure you're pricing the house accurately into the market, because there's clear data to show. For 99% of the homes out there, there's clear data to show this is what the value of the house is. So make sure you do an accurate evaluation. This estimate does not count. It does not count. Sometimes it's close.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's close, sometimes it's accurate. I think sometimes if somebody a seller, a seller thinks buyers are dumb, or, in other words, a seller doesn't understand that people that are in the market for homes in their price point location, whatever it might be, buyers know exactly what's going on in the market.
Speaker 1:They're looking at homes every day and they they know they're not dumb and if you overlist a house, you're actually helping those other houses that are over listed helping them sell right, it's not.
Speaker 3:That's. That's a behavioral bias. It's not exclusive to people selling homes. What's a behavioral bias? What I have is the best thing ever and it's worth more than everything else compared to it.
Speaker 2:That, anything, that and then whatever anyone else has, because this is my house, this is, you know, it's, it's great memories, here We've loved it here.
Speaker 3:Someone else is going to love it more than any other house.
Speaker 2:And we raised five kids here, yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, look, and that's fine and you want to know what Buyers have the exact same bias on the opposite end of the spectrum when they're going to look which is everyone's house is crap and I should get a great deal. I'll lowball everyone.
Speaker 2:I'll you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like, everyone wants me to buy their house. I have money I can buy. Everyone wants to sell me their house right now, like. That's why they're trying to get rid of it. Why are they trying to get rid? Like, and truthfully, that's why people use agents that talk some sense into them and help a buyer and a seller come to the table and make a great, you know, an agreement where everyone feels like they win. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what that kind of brings up this. This thought that I had of of what you mentioned earlier, rob, was you know this is a sales industry and I think maybe it should be more of a consultation industry. You know what I mean like instead of consultant. Yeah, a consultant. Right, a real estate agent isn't, or maybe shouldn't be, a sales guy or gal.
Speaker 1:They should be consultants like I'm here to present you data and make informed decisions which I think that's why there's a strong argument to where agents don't get paid off a percentage of the house but getting some kind of rate right, just like an attorney or an accountant does right, it's getting getting paid off the percentage of the house.
Speaker 1:I can see that argument is because to to be able to shift from a salesperson where they're getting paid off what the sticker price is on the house versus they get some kind of rate over time. It's just the industry as a whole has to shift that way. It's not? It's really tough to make the make. It make a hard cut, but I think it's common, the industry, the.
Speaker 3:The irony of it is that the industry lowered the standards and the barrier to entry low enough that it became a sales industry, because it the nar did yeah it's well, it's the organization come on nar and the state. Be honest like it's not. It is just a function of the nar. It's, it's. Yeah, that's true from a lobby standpoint.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I mean you can't, you can't be a division of real estate unless you're a part of the nar and so, like the utah division of real estate seems like a racket to be a part of the uar, you have to be a part of the NAR. You don't get a choice, so it's just like a yeah, but the state could regulate the standards differently.
Speaker 3:They could. They won't because of lobbying, but they should, yeah, and my point being is like no one says like, oh, that's a real estate sales office, like it's a real estate brokerage, okay, and the difference between like somebody that brokers deals and a salesperson is if I want a salesperson, I go down to the car dealership. They've never said that's a car broker, right, right and they. And if I want a cell phone, I go down and talk to the guy at the cell phone store and buy a cell phone. The salesman, the cell phone store, sells my cell phone. They've never said that's a cell phone broker. Right, he's matching the, the, the, the hard to find buyers to apple to sell their.
Speaker 1:It's like well, I don't even think it's that.
Speaker 3:It's that a broker is when there is a liquid market that you have to find Yachts.
Speaker 2:There's complexity to a deal. There's no yacht salesman, there's yacht brokers. They find deals and put them together.
Speaker 3:They find deals, they put them together, they match a ready, willing and able buyer with a ready, willing and able seller and they help those people come together to create a positive outcome. And that's what a broker really should do and that's what real estate agents should be focused on doing. Real estate isn't sales, it's brokering good deals, and you make your living brokering good deals.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a title, because if you look at the broker of a, a brokerage, they're almost like a manager. They're not involved in any of the deals yeah or very little of them, unless there's issues. But it's almost like a title that yeah, like.
Speaker 3:But that's because, like, from a technicality standpoint, agents right are just representatives of the broker. So technically, the broker that's, the manager at the brokerage office is the one that's really technically the one doing everything but, like my point being is, there is a shift there where, like real estate shouldn't be sales, but I think that was they've watered it down so far.
Speaker 1:My going back to a fiduciary is that a car salesman doesn't have fiduciary duty right, which is what the what the industry's leaned on for so long. The industry as a whole said, which is we're a fiduciary and so we are more of a consultant.
Speaker 3:But only because of representing us, a designated party, like, not even. That's not even specific to all brokers, right? If you're a yacht broker, you're typically like I've got people looking and I got people selling and I'm going to match it up.
Speaker 3:There's not, there's not going to be like there's not going to be like there's not going to be. The same like fiduciary obligations, the way that real estate agents toss it around. And I've never felt good about agents tossing that around because of the nature of the way that agents are compensated. Right, like, hey, I'm a fiduciary to my, to my buyers here, but my compensation is based upon how much I get them to pay for the home. And, by the way, it's another, it's an, it's the person across the table that's paying me. Yeah, right, that has never. I, you know it.
Speaker 1:it doesn't make any sense Like when you, when you map it out, when you map it out, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know, and there's a difference between being a fiduciary when you're, when you're giving somebody advice, right, and when you're representing them, and the differences in real estate. You only have a fiduciary obligation to the client when you're representing them to another party. You don't have a fiduciary obligation to the client. The same way, if they say, hey, should I pay three 80 or three 90 for this house, you don't have an obligation to say, well, I think I can negotiate this down, we should get it for three 80. If it's more, if it's, you know, more than three 80, we shouldn't buy it. If they're willing to pay three 90, you can say, yeah, pay three 90 for it. That's not a, that's not a violation of your fiduciary obligations as a, as a real estate agent. Right, okay, because you don't have a fiduciary obligation, like when you're talking to them. You have a fid court would say when you knowingly have the data at your fingertips to say that this house down the street.
Speaker 1:I think it does, because when you sign off, when you have a buyer-broker agency agreement, you're stating that you're giving them real estate advice based on your knowledge of the market and now proving that is a completely different story. It's a uh um. The fiduciary part is an accountability piece to it, which agents across the board have been in violation of and found guilty of violating that fiduciary duty. I have an example there's.
Speaker 3:There's how about in 2021, when, when I would talk to people, they'd be like, oh, we finally got a house. And I'd be like, yeah, they're like we had, yeah, we had you know forty thousand dollars, you know, to buy a house and we finally got one. I'd like, oh, what'd you you know how much40,000, you know to to buy a house? And we, we finally got one. I like, oh, what'd you, you know how much over did you go and asking like $40,000? I'm like, yeah, who, uh, who told you to do that? You know, my agent, my agent, said to just offer everything we possibly could.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's so. That's you know what I mean. It's like there's that fiduciary is invite. You're violating it.
Speaker 1:There is at least some kind of mechanism for not getting the appropriate advice where you know, especially during 21, when prices were insane. If somebody wanted to do that, I would say you go ahead and do that, but I'm advising you that is not a good idea. I want that on record to know. Tell you this is not a good idea to do this. Is that just because you're battling out all these people and the market the value of your house? I just said it is what a seller is willing to sell, sell it for and what a buyer is willing to pay.
Speaker 1:Yes, but as a fiduciary to my client, who I have assigned by a broker agreement with, if I gave them that advice, my advice is I don't think you should do that. You can go ahead and do that, but I don't think you should do that and then they get to make that decision on their own. So you know, back back to it still doesn't make any sense. Because that's where that sales piece comes into play, because I get valued, the value of me, my commission is based off. That's that final sticker price and the incentive is where to go up Major conflict of interest Major conflict of interest and I know they're doing what they can to you know.
Speaker 3:There always will be some kind of conflict of interest in every situation, no matter what you free from conflict of interest.
Speaker 1:I don't know that's, that's a big, that's a bold statement in any in any kind of professional setting, in any kind of professional setting right.
Speaker 3:Like in any kind of professional setting, you can't be true?
Speaker 1:uh, well, maybe not true. Um, I won't argue with that at the moment because I can't think of an argument against that because I haven't thought about, but in real estate very finite but not absolute in real estate. There's a lot of options for conflict of interest. There's a lot of opportunities for agents to take advantage of that.
Speaker 2:So here's a hypothetical. Then, back in 2021, I'm a deal in hypotheticals, jeff. Okay, go ahead. I'm a buyer and this is loosely based on a scenario that I was involved in. I'm a buyer. I pay $100,000 over asking price for just a normal two-story townhome. $100,000 over asking price because I can qualify for it, because rates are so low. Well, here we are four years later, those townhomes are now selling for $100,000 less than what I paid. Can I go back and sue my real estate agent? Can you go backwards?
Speaker 1:I think you can Probably.
Speaker 2:Right, Well, I mean I think this is America.
Speaker 3:You can always sue somebody for anything.
Speaker 2:So I have an email from my real estate agent saying hey, yeah, like you know, here's the other agent is telling me that we've got offers you know, 50, 75 and $100,000 over asking. The only way to get this is to pay $500,000, you know, for a $400,000 townhome. And now that's violating fiduciary duty Absolutely, I would think so.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in a similar situation and I, hopefully you so. Absolutely yeah, I was in a similar situation and I hopefully you weren't the buyer agent. No, I told my. I told the buyers I said, look, I'm not, I'm not going to represent you on this deal. And they offered I don't, I'm, I'm 99 sure they didn't get the home, but they offered something like 75 000 over asking on town home and I was like I'm not but as a seller I'd be like, yeah, let's jack that prize up all day long if I'm representing the seller oh, yeah, hey well that's your job, that's that's your job getting the most money right and so that's again goes back to the messed up scenario.
Speaker 2:You know, like there's no other, there's no other industry like.
Speaker 3:But if you're. But if you're paying your buy, if you're paying your buyer's agent solely on and it's the system we're in solely on the purchase price that you buy the home at and whether or not the transaction closes, there's a huge conflict of interest. Well, the agent has to try to manage.
Speaker 1:Have you seen commissions change? I'm like no. I mean, I've seen commissions change for other agents, but have I changed? Seen the value of my commissions go down? No, they're about the same. Two and a half percent is basically what the average is commission per agent, whether it's the buy side or the seller side.
Speaker 1:But I've seen a lot of buyer agents putting in offers at 1% that they've put on the offer that they're going to only take 1% commission from the seller, which is great for the seller because it nets them more money. And we use it as a listing agent as a tool to net them more money. Right, we're going to. We're going to offer a buyer agent commission depending on what the value of the offer comes in at right, Because the seller has a net number that they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1:They want to get the most money for it and, especially in multiple offer situations, it's going to be a function of the negotiation, the commission is going to be a function which is helpful, right, and that shifts things a little bit, but it's not going to really make a wide, sweeping change, which is why I don't understand why the NAR made some kind of settlement, Cause I don't think the DOJ ultimately where we've landed. So far, the story has not been written yet. This isn't where we're landing. I think the DOJ is still going to continue to put pressure on buyers paying for their buyer agent, sellers paying for the seller's agent.
Speaker 3:It's one piece to the puzzle which is good for everybody.
Speaker 2:It, buddy, it is good for everyone in the end because, no, no, it's good for. It's good for everyone except the part-time buyers agents.
Speaker 1:Yeah that will create a. It will create a bigger barrier to entry. Yeah, because the buyer agent commission is the buyer's money anyway. Exactly, exactly true. Um, I thought that was interesting, mal, if you want to go to my screen here. Days on market per price point. So this is ranked uh, days on market, so homes valued from 900 to a million, 87 days on market.
Speaker 2:Those are the homes that are sitting on the market the longest between nine and a million list to sell ratios based on price point by chance. Yeah, so that would have taken me an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but the the point being is that just in these price points, it's taking 87 days for, and if you, if you think of, okay, my buyers are sellers market, it's taking 87 days for, and if you, if you think of, okay, my buyers are sellers market, if it's taking longer to sell, that's more of a buyer's market, right, because homes are sitting less. Less demand is for homes in that price point from number two six to seven, six to number, the longest days on market 600 to 700,000, 81 days on market. So the average is 78 days, 81 days for six to 700,000. Uh, number three 800 to 900,000, 80 days. So basically, between 600,000 and a million. That's what's taking the biggest hit and those are the moat, those are the move-up buyers. I think the homes that are active on the inventory, those are we already have a house and we're wanting to get into a bigger house, or yeah they've got a bunch of equity from, from their home.
Speaker 2:They can choose. They can pick and choose what they want. Or they could just stay put, or they can. Yeah, they don't have to buy, but they can if they want to, right, so they can be picky on.
Speaker 1:Look at you uh number four million to a million, 25 or 1.25 million, 250,000000, 72 days on market. And then I'm going to so that was interesting that it's homes over a million are going faster than homes under a million, between 600, 900,000, a million, 250 to 2 million, 68 days on market. Which I'm going to get into is the migration data is like where who's buying the house? That's over $1.25 million. It's they're coming from out of the area, they're not from here, it's people with the cheddar, it's people with the money. And then what's taking the longest or the shortest to sell is between $400,000 and $500,000. So it's only 51 days on market for between $400,000 and $500,000. Because those are the only homes that are affordable. Those are the affordable ones.
Speaker 2:Quotation marks affordable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 63 days on market for homes 2 to 250.
Speaker 2:And those are mostly trailers 2 to 250, right or like small townhomes, townhomes, yep, individuals.
Speaker 1:So there's not a big demand, but 63 days on market for those. But yeah, basically between 300 and 500, or, yeah, between 300 and 600,000, those are the homes that are selling the fastest, which I thought was interesting, interesting data. We've got mortgage rates just looking over time. Over the last year they've gone up, they've gone down and then they've gone up again, which is we're going to see more of the same. We have not broke under 6% in in. It's basically been five years.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask what's the lowest interest rate in the last rolling 12 months we've seen? Has it been?
Speaker 1:it hasn't not been under six, right no it's like six, six point one, six point one percent back in september. Let's see what perplexity says. I'm looking at the chart right here. So so I can know, you got charts, I got a chart, I got AI, you got it. What do you think about that? Brandon 6.1. That's not a bad. That's not a bad interest rate, but that's it.
Speaker 3:The 10 year treasury has really been trading down, but the mortgage, the MBS spread, has been widening, which means what I tend to think what that basically means is that it's the mortgage market saying like, yeah, we don't really believe that 10 years is going to stay down that far, so we're not going to.
Speaker 3:We're not going to start quoting stuff, because you remember, like when they, when you get a mortgage, they have to queue that up, they're going to lock the rate and then they have to close and then they're going to have to queue that up, they're going to lock the rate and then they have to close and then they're going to have to warehouse that loan for about 30 days as they package it and think it it's sold into an MBS.
Speaker 3:And so if the 10 year just trades down on like a snap reflex, they can't just go to start like shifting the mortgage rates down, because if the 10 year trades back up, then what it does is they end up taking a huge loss on just originating your loan, because originating the loan is actually quite risky, right, a brand new loan has a bit of risk and if the interest rate moves like, say, like 1% while they're warehousing a new mortgage.
Speaker 3:They can lose like 10, 15% on your mortgage, like just for originating. That's a huge, that's a big loss, you know. So you just have to be yeah, I think, I think like, yeah, if the 10 years coming down, but the mortgage rates are just widening every time it drops down, that to me tends to indicate that that rates are going to stay uh, uh, secularly higher. Right, yeah, so coming into a cyclical low, maybe, or or a short-term low, but uh, I, I think rates are going to stay kind of we're locked, we're frozen, uh yeah, range, bound, range according to perplexity, march 27th 2025 was the lowest interest rate in the last 12 months, at 6.64 percent.
Speaker 2:That's wrong perplexity's wrong.
Speaker 3:That's what you don't pay for, pro, do you?
Speaker 1:wrong. Perflexity is wrong. You don't pay for pro, do you no? But it's also like where is it getting that data from? Right? And as the, as the index goes like, my interest rate is going to be different from your interest rate, no matter what right, just based off the factors that go into what your qualification is for your rate. So credit score can have a big, big impact on that. And who's getting that interest rate versus who's getting the low sixes like we were getting in september?
Speaker 1:24th yeah, I've seen like va and fha down into the high fives yeah, and that and that's another thing, but a lot of those come with origination fees, right, and so you can. You can go, if you have a little bit of money, uh down and pay ahead of time to get a lower rate that ultimately over a three to five year period of time. Similar it's, a similar it's.
Speaker 3:You're basically paying the same, I think, like the buy down, the buy down typically takes more than five years to get a payback on a buy down. I I yeah, that's what I tend to caution people around buy downs.
Speaker 1:Well, the origination fee is different than the buy down. Oh yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying if you, if you say I don't have an origination, right.
Speaker 3:But if you say like, but I don't have an origination fee on, like a conventional, the same way I don't have that same origination expense, so I'll use that same dollar amount to buy down my rate and get a more favorable rate, like the FHA or the VA loan had to offer, then like you can do that. I think that's what you're trying to say, right, like that's what. All of a sudden they become sort of apples to apples that way and my point is I just I still, in any scenario, typically tend to caution people around buying down rates unless you're super certain you're staying in the home like a really long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and go to your lender and talk about what that, what that looks like, cause they can give you a chart that they can amortize it out and they can say okay, this is, this is where your, your point, your break-even point is gonna be. But there's a double catch with the FHA loans is that you have an origination fee and then you gotta pay mortgage insurance on top of it, and so you might be getting a low rate, right? You see the sign.
Speaker 3:It's the marketing ploy, it goes back to the smarts 5.79 or something, but you're an effective rate of six still.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. So, looking back, going back to the perplexity being wrong is that ai, ai is not going to save us folks. It's got a long way to go before they save us. Okay, um, you guys can't see this, um, but I'm looking at the map of the united states. So what did I say? Uh, arizona, um, colorado, california, idaho, idaho. So if you look at the county by county breakdown, so on map, basically the entire coast of California, from top of the state all the way down, the average price is over the average sales price or value of the home is over 550,000. So if you think of what our median price is, so it's roughly between 550 and a million dollars across the coast. And then if you look in the Bay area, it's the average value of a home is a million dollars. It's the average average price of a home. And if we're in this mid six, six, eighties, I didn't know, mcmansion either, it's not a.
Speaker 1:McMansion and so. But if you, if you spill out from the Bay area, basically across the entire state, all the way to the Nevada border, and then you go over into the Reno area, uh, the average price of a home is over $750,000 where ours, ours, is 680. So if you, if you're looking at all, where is all this money come from? If you look at Colorado, basically all of the Denver, uh, greater Metro area of Colorado, all the way up to Fort Collins and then all the way down to the Southern part of the state, the Denver area specifically, is a million dollars is the average price value of a home, right, and so if your average price is 680 here, the average is in Colorado is a million. They got to come down a long way for us to see downward pressure from out of the area.
Speaker 1:Salt Lake Valley is the same thing. Summit County average price point is over a million dollars, but the Salt Lake area, just in and around the Salt Lake area, everything's over $750,000. Yeah, between 500 and 750, which we actually have a net loss of people going up north. So we have more people leaving southern Utah to go up north rather than them coming to southern Utah, which is interesting sounds like a bad trade.
Speaker 3:You have to buy a more expensive house and a snowblower and a snowblower.
Speaker 1:Well, they also have more options. Right, their inventory is going to be different. They have more options to buy houses up there. And it comes to jobs right is that people leave this area because we don't have as many jobs where retirees? The Seattle area, right, seattle area. I have a buddy that bought a home $750,000 or $750 to a million in the Seattle area. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:It's an average price point. I have a buddy that just sold a home in Denver. He bought it in 2017 and he netted $1.2 million.
Speaker 1:There's a net Netted, they get to take that money and go do whatever they want with it.
Speaker 2:No, kids, they have a truck and an Airstream.
Speaker 3:First thing you get to do is pay capital gains tax, because that's far and beyond the primary home residence exemption.
Speaker 1:I don't know why people are moving here from Indiana, because the average price home in Indiana is not the same. Okay, have you ever been to Indiana?
Speaker 3:No, you would know why people are moving here from there if you had been.
Speaker 1:You, you would know why people are moving here from there if you had been. You're saying you know this might sound crazy, but I hate real estate agents and after being with myself for the last 10 years, I know the good ones from the bad ones. If you're thinking about buying, selling or investing in real estate here in Southern Utah, we want you to interview us for the job. Go to realestate435.com and give us a call. We promise you're going to love us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, four, three, five dot com and give us a call. We promise you're gonna love us. Yeah, I'm saying, I too am from the midwest and I am imagining that they left indiana for some of the same reasons I left wisconsin fair enough. Going back to the snowblower thing, yeah, I don't have to shovel sunshine, man, yeah yeah, they're pretty much all fly over land.
Speaker 1:Uh, there's very few people tennessee there's. There's some in tenn in Tennessee that can get more bang for their buck down here Virginia. I mean all the mass layoffs for the federal government. If you're on the East Coast, this is definitely looking nice Come to St George.
Speaker 1:Come to St George, florida. There's some counties in florida where people can move here, but if you're looking at, the majority of the home value appreciation has been in the mountain west it's it's been mountain west in the in the pacific coast, and so we're in such a great location for that. We're going to continue to see people coming from montana and idaho and oregon and washington, nevada. Interestingly enough, we have a lot of people moving here from Nevada where Vegas Vegas values have gone up Yep, a lot of that Reno area has gone up a lot and it snows and so they're trying to get out of the snow and move down to the. The sunny St George population of Vegas. It's gone crazy too.
Speaker 3:Uh, I can't believe. Colorado Vegas is really interesting. Have you seen that?
Speaker 1:Have that. Have you seen stuff about like?
Speaker 3:the year-over-year revenue declines in in vegas. Uh yeah, chris connor sent me something about the, the. The hotels and casinos are getting hammered, absolutely destroyed. Man, um, I don't and I don't. I I am. I am uneducated on the topic. I I'm not an expert by any means. Uh, I just find it fascinating, right like that you have parts of the economy and stuff that is doing great, right like disneyland's packed, but the strip's pretty empty. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like and the hotels just aren't performing the way the casinos aren't bringing. I wonder if it's a generational thing.
Speaker 1:I, that's what I'm so fascinated by, and they can do it online, like, if you're going to be a gambler, you can. Yeah, do you want to go to vegas to be?
Speaker 2:a gambler, do you want?
Speaker 1:to go to Vegas to go gamble. It used to be. You could only go to a couple of places.
Speaker 3:But now it's like gambling. You can do anywhere, I remember. And people are drinking less too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I saw those numbers Millennials are drinking way less Prices.
Speaker 2:Five years ago, unless you're in Michigan, you could go to vegas and I mean you could park like almost anywhere for free. Now it's like I mean we went to the outlets a couple weeks ago and it was seven bucks to park in like a parking, the parking at the outlet mall.
Speaker 3:Yeah then, are you serious?
Speaker 1:that was free for like ever, I know so well. I mean, they got to get their money somewhere.
Speaker 3:If people are stopped gambling, well I think, I think people are just I think people are just not going as much because you're just saying the value proposition of vegas, isn't there the way?
Speaker 2:that it has been historically, it's not.
Speaker 3:It used to be so like the appeal was. It was like, even just 10 years ago, you go down and you got a hotel room for you know, 45 bucks for the night, like a decent hotel room, and they gave you a nearly free hotel room and free parketing and all stuff because they they they banked on you gambling away a lot of your money at the casino and so they knew they're gonna make their margin there and uh, and now it's like you just get nickel and dime everywhere, everywhere you go, and it's just dirty and it's like not appealing. And you know what I mean. It's just like, yeah, I mean disneyland's got its own problems with nickel and diamond, yeah, everywhere you go and and there's a slew of issues there. But it's just fascinating that disneyland's holding up while vegas is getting just obliterated yeah 37 dollars for a stuffed animal at disneyland is that?
Speaker 3:is that all? What do they put them on sale? Oh man, disneyland, I spent spent a lot of years at disneyland, living down the street and getting.
Speaker 1:Is that all? What do they put them on sale? Oh man, disneyland. I spent a lot of years at Disneyland, living down the street and getting season passes. Those days are long gone, long gone.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:Last thing we're going to cover unemployment. We're seeing basically 3% unemployment in Utah, 3% unemployment in St George area and Washington County, 3.2, 3.3. No changes from year over year. Average weekly wages $931 in Washington County. Average weekly wages for all industries by county St George area this is at a quarter three, 2024. I'm so sick of getting data that is old. What is so difficult about getting labor data? This report was from March. This is March 15th 2025. The department of labor statistics put this out, but they don't have data since quarter three of 24. I don't understand why they can't get this right now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I think one of the things, that one of the things that has made labor data less, uh, um, accurate, yeah, accurate or reliable less reliable than it's been in the past is the increase of, like, the gig economy, because it used to be that you could get like data from ADP and that was a really good measure, because everyone's getting their paychecks and it's flowing through their system, and so ADP could publish this data on, like how many people are employed, how much are they getting paid, how many hours are they?
Speaker 3:working Right, and so you could go to the payroll companies and process this. But if you're driving an Uber or you're a real estate agent, right as an independent contractor anyone that's working in an independent contractor that data is not reported the same way and it's hard to track. And then is so the guy that's driving Uber? Is he laid off and unemployed right now, or is he technically employed? Which one is it?
Speaker 1:He's just pushed pause on his Uber account and so now he's just not, he's hanging out at home. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Is that good?
Speaker 3:I didn't think about that it is, and so it's really messy and I I don't. I don't know if that's the case. That's why it's delayed. I as like the quantum me says that makes it unreliable data like. If you're getting data that's been smoothed, then that's kind of an issue in and of itself too yeah, it is very frustrating.
Speaker 1:It seems like there's no pharmaceutical companies work smooth, the data smooth the data uh lobby that's how the government works lobbying it's a government works that way.
Speaker 3:It's a separate conversation uh employment st george area employment rfk on scene, aren't we? I like this yeah, next week.
Speaker 1:I like this information a lot is the? No, we're not getting rfk on here as much as I tried to get him during the the uh maybe one of us, maybe one of us could do a voice impression if you guys could share this to friends. We pump our numbers up, numbers up and maybe get some of these bigger candidates on here.
Speaker 3:That'd be great Hit, follow and subscribe so you don't miss the RFK yeah.
Speaker 1:If you didn't know, I'm going to pull Jeremy Larkin. If you didn't know, we're real estate agents here in Southern Utah, real Estate 435. Go to realestate435.com and find us on 100 South downtown St George, right across from New City Hall.
Speaker 1:We can help you with all real estate needs Shout out to Jeremy Larkin, shout out to Jeremy Larkin. He's the promoter of all promoters. I'm not great at this, he's great at it. Non-farm employment about 88% of our employers are not farmers, which I think is still such a funny thing that we keep sticking into Employment. 18% of our employment is trade, transportation utilities 15. Education, health, health services, leisure, hospitality is 12 of our economy. Governments 11 of our economy. Oh my gosh, doge can't come fast enough. Uh, mining, logging and construction, which is interesting 11. This is an important number because we have gone up in in construction. This is mainly mining and logging. Let's be honest so there's.
Speaker 3:So there's as many people issuing permits and telling you how to build as there are people building. Yeah, exactly, exactly, it seems like you a government falls into schools, though, too.
Speaker 1:This another thing is teachers. Yeah, oh, I guess education, health services are separated out of this, which is weird because the government funds a lot of that stuff. But, yeah, government jobs, there's a whole range of it, but 11, 11% of our economy is based off just government and employment, which I think is a pretty big number, being that it's basically a big leg considering the rest of them 30,000 people in the County?
Speaker 2:Yeah, based off the population.
Speaker 1:That's so crazy. Leisure, hospitality is 12%, education 15%, trade 18% and then construction is 11%. One thing I'll say is manufacturing has gone down. Everything's gone up except for manufacturing. Manufacturing has gone down 2% from 24 to 25. Information has gone up 10%, but we used to have basically none. Now we have 1% information services that goes into the technology sector. Is that Silicon Slopes?
Speaker 3:finally, or Kind of Silicon Slopes building out Tech Ridge, tech Ridge, yeah.
Speaker 1:Tech Ridge a little bit, I think, because they're employing more and more. But we've got a lot of different companies coming in doing all different kinds of stuff. Financial activities 3% is pretty small number. Other services 2%. That's a gig economy, I guess. I mean, maybe where would the gig economy come into? Would it be trade, transportation and utilities? I have no idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where does that fall into? What kind of gig are you talking? Because, like, property management is going to be. That's a different kind of gig economy, what I really like about this, this mix, though?
Speaker 1:is that nothing that you? There's not one clear, like heavy industry, that we're reliant on for employment, which I think it's spreading out more than it going going into a potential recession, going into an uh, uh an economy that's shaky at best.
Speaker 1:Right, we're just not quite sure how we're going to go. No matter, no matter what. When we look at these numbers, I don't think there's one single sector that is really going to tip over for us to see home values come down. I think is what I'm bringing the point back to is real estate. We have counties all over the country, especially the mountain West, that are bringing dollars into Washington County with real estate values being high there, higher than us there. That's going to continue to have stability in the real estate market, so feel some confidence in that.
Speaker 1:Our local economy is strong and diverse, much more diverse than it has been in ever in its entire history, going back to 2008,. 30% of the economy in 2008 was or 2006 and seven, 2006 and seven right before the crash. 30% of the economy in 2008 was or 2006 and seven, 2006 and seven right before the crash. 30% of the economy was construction. So, looking at that's down to 11%. Yeah, we just keep building. It seems like that's all we're doing, but at the at the crux of it is that's not our local economy, it's just construction, which is which is good to do, good to see, but that's that's the. I think that's all the stuff you need to know about the real estate. Anything we want to leave everybody with guys.
Speaker 2:I think that's it man.
Speaker 1:We got World Strength Games tickets to give away.
Speaker 2:A hundred, we got a hundred tickets we got to give away.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, though it got psyched up. So, if you didn't listen to last week's episode, we interviewed the founders of World Strength Games, russ and Abby uh Anderson, and it was a very interesting conversation. We talked about stem cells, which I had no ideas. Another unique, awesome business that's here in St George that they own and operate Not stem cells, stem cells, not stem cells. Stem cells, I don't know. I don't know what I have any obligation. They're stem cells. Um, I don any obligation to say what they are or they're not, but they talked freely about it. So, um, but interesting bio, the biotechnology industry here in Washington County. We've got a lot of interesting stuff happening there. But check out that episode.
Speaker 1:If you want some tickets to the world strength games, reach out to us. Make sure you like, subscribe, hit us some reviews. It's really helpful for our motivation and our energy to to put on the best guests possible when we get positive feedback. So jump in the comments. Um, visit us. Real estate, four, three, fivecom Uh, reach out to us, let us know how we can help you and you guys, we'll see you out there. Bye, thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going.
Speaker 2:Find us at realestate435.com. We'd love to help you find a house here in town or help you get wherever you're going.